Greater Boston · Alexander Danner & Jeff Van Dreason

Presenting: Moonburn

April 23, 2025·31 min·2 clips

A cassette tape left under a floorboard by someone who planned to die tries to help whoever finds it survive.

Lucas is already overwhelmed. The excerpt drops him into a boarding home just as a cassette recording ends in the worst spot, leaving him desperate for more while Carter kills the hope. Panic gets no privacy in this house. Before Lucas can make sense of the tape, people keep showing up, arguing, asking what they missed, and somehow dragging pizza into the emergency. The whole scene runs on interruption. Olivia and Sadie walk into the mess, Ryan leans toward food, and Lucas keeps trying to figure out why strangers keep appearing around him like this is normal. Then Caleb enters. A sliced finger becomes first aid, teasing, and flirtation that pretends to be practical help. Lucas wants to seem composed. He is not, especially once the room, the old house, and his missing pants all get folded into the same social disaster. Caleb treats danger like a house rule. The residents are already too comfortable with each other, and Lucas is told, with a grin, that he is stuck with them now. No clean exit, apparently. The boarding home starts to feel built for exactly this: secrets, crushes, hallway noise, and nowhere to hide. The cassette gives the scene its ache. The banter keeps jabbing that ache before it can settle, usually with a joke, a practical question, or someone bursting in at the worst time. Greater Boston presents Moonburn here, then points listeners toward August Year Round Productions, subscriptions, ratings, reviews, and the wider fiction podcast network once the excerpt has landed. The pull is Lucas realizing his fresh start already has old recordings, instant witnesses, and a household that will not let him disappear quietly.

As heard by us

A queer boarding-house story that pairs warm banter with a low, steady undercurrent of threat.

Moonburn begins with a clear, inviting setup: Lucas, a down-on-his-luck 18-year-old, lands in a New York City boarding home and discovers decades-old diary cassette tapes left by Carter, the room's first occupant.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want queer slice-of-life with a mystery tucked into old diary cassette tapes.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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